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This is devastating. I have so many fond memories of meeting fellow weirdos over text. The days where StumbleUpon always took you somewhere exciting, cool, beau
by ijustlovemath 3y ago
This is devastating. I have so many fond memories of meeting fellow weirdos over text. The days where StumbleUpon always took you somewhere exciting, cool, beautiful, interesting, funny, or novel. Where you looked at what people did with The Web 2.0 and only marveled at the possibilities of what could come. Truly feels like the death of one of the old guard, a Usenet-of-the-2010s.
I even used it during pandemic times as a way to dance with strangers over video; putting on ridiculous outfits and playing disco were some of the moments from those dark times that I still cherish.
RIP Omegle! You will be missed, by me and many others.
- eru 3y ago> Where you looked at what people did with The Web 2.0 and only marveled at the possibilities of what could come. Truly feels like the death of one of the old guard, a Usenet-of-the-2010s. This is funny to me, because I am old enough to remember when web 2.0 was new, and people were nostalgic for 'web 1.0'. (And, of course, it's turtles all the way down with nostalgia.)
- cplusplusfellow 3y agoI was growing up when the first people got BBS' and CompuServe. I don't miss the days of dial-up. I miss the days just as you learned Google could answer questions you asked in free-form, without the censorship and advertisement preferences they give today. Those were better days on gonewild also.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- civilitty 3y agoI miss the good ol’ days of Minitel. Imagine an internet made up almost exclusively of French people.
- eru 3y ago> Imagine an internet made up almost exclusively of French people. I'm not sure I would want to imagine that. But then, I'm German.
- dotancohen 3y agoA fox would not want to imagine an internet made up almost exclusively of hens? ))
- eru 3y agoThose dastardly Frenchmen used to always try and conquer my ancestors. The long line of Louis didn't get all that far (but their interference in the 30 years wars probably made things worse), but Napoleon finally managed to take a big bit out of German lands for a while.
- dotancohen 3y agoThank you for that perspective. We never realize how ignorant we are of other peoples' situations. I say that as someone who has spend the last eight months trying to understand the perspective of the people who call themselves my enemies.
- malpighien 3y agoHow expensive was it to participate in message boards. My parents used it so sparingly and with the idea that any minute was addding up. I read 60 francs l'heure, so about 10 euros or more like 17 with inflation. Even spending an hour a day would be a costly hobby.
- jchw 3y agoEven though I did miss older stuff in the web 2.0 days, I had a positive outlook (and good reason to have it) for the things that would come next. Not anymore.
- maegul 3y ago> it's turtles all the way down with nostalgia. And yet golden eras do occur, or so it would seem. I’m sure it’s hard to tell when you’re in or near one, which is an interesting topic in its own right, but it doesn’t mean we should dismiss outright the possibility that a passing era might just be taking something truly valuable with it.
- eru 3y agoEven a non-golden era can have something truly valuable. Btw, we are living in a golden age. The vast majority of humanity has never had it better.
- chx 3y ago> we are living in a golden age I would've agreed pre-covid.
- Eisenstein 3y agoLess than 130 years ago 47% of all children in the USA died before reaching age 5. I think that we are doing just fine even with covid.
- ehnto 3y agoFlat Design had barely begun, jQuery had a bright future. CSS compilation? That's a step too far don't you think?
- theclansman 3y agoI'm still nostalgic about the pre-facebook internet.
- sneak 3y agoWe’re all still here. Start a small online community and tell us about it. (I did!)
- JohnBooty 3y agoMy experience begins with BBSs in the late 1980s and runs through some of those eras. I thought the Web 2.0 era was something special! Web 1.0 was fun but looking back, it was mostly about the promise of what the web/internet would eventually be able to do. Web 2.0 was where it really came together for me. The interwebs started to actually attract more diversity and specifically, it started to no longer be overwhelmingly male, which started to make the social aspect a lot more fun to me. Web 2.0 was the era when Javascript started to be semi-useful, and there was a lot of cool "remix" type stuff happening via open API's and RSS before everybody locked all that stuff away, and video on the internet started to be kind of practical. And the web hadn't been completely choked by naked commercialization. Felt like there were still some cool alternative corners of the web that hadn't yet been paved over so they could build a parking lot for a mall. I also thought that a lot of cool Web 2.0 stuff happened because of the post-Web1 "dot com" era layoffs. You had a lot of underemployed but talented developers making things. (but obviously everybody will have their own personal favorite eras!)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- justsid 3y agoI didn’t use Omegle much, but I actually met my now wife on there. We used the text only thing where a third person suggests a topic. Must’ve talked for a good 2 hours on there before exchanging informations, I shudder thinking that even the smallest glitch could have changed my life so drastically. We met 11 years ago on the platform, a completely random fluke. And while I haven’t really used Omegle in a long time, it’s always had a soft spot in my heart due to how much it changed the trajectory of my life. It’s a sad day.
- admissionsguy 3y agoWhat was the suggested topic?
- justsid 3y agoI don't fully remember, but I think it was about One Direction. We very quickly went off on tangents, but I think the feature was implemented so that the third person can spy on the messages but not interact in any way. I sometimes wonder how long they ended up staying in the conversation.
- amatecha 3y agoNo way! That's awesome. You should reach out to the creator of the site and let him know about this (if you haven't already). He'd probably be super happy to hear this story :)
- prox 3y agoMaybe its a good idea to collect a lot of these positive stories and get them up somewhere for all the peeps at Omegle to see.
- jacquesm 3y agoAny platform that is large enough will sooner or later become a 'slice of life'. I've seen this with ww.com/camarades.com, and it was fascinating to see that development up close. One of the most memorable ones for me was a terminally ill patient in a hospital that was still conscious that used our fledgling video meeting service to stay in touch with family members all over the USA. And random strangers dropping in to wish them well. Some people would protest that this wasn't material that should be shown online but I always defended such uses because (1) it seemed like the right thing to do and (2) life has nice sides and darker sides and I don't think pretending the darker sides don't exist is a realistic position.
- SnooSux 3y agoStumble Upon used to be so addicting
- dheera 3y agoMaybe we should create a DeFi version of this that doesn't have an owner and can't be sued. Things like Omegle should be likened to an empty grass field in the middle of town, with nobody responsible for what actually happens on it except the people who choose to be there.
- andrepd 3y agoThis is a bad take on several levels. First the de-fi angle. You want a distributed application, no need to shoehorn crypto into there. But second and most important: the ultralibertarian angle of "you chose to be there so you take respinsabolity for whatever happens to you" is also not good. For one, there's children. For another, moderation and law enforcement is a good thing. Whatever replaces omegle will almost certainly have worse moderation, a less benevolent manager, and less eagerness to cooperate with authorities to, for example, hand over evidence of child predation. Free speech is not incompatible with the attempt to enforce laws.
- dheera 3y ago> You want a distributed application What would incentivize a huge number of people to run a decentralized and distributed application so that it actually continues to run? (Hint: the hope of a coin mooning)
- victorbjorklund 3y agoTOR runs without some shitcoin.
- alphager 3y agoThe usefulness of said application. The fun of being part of it. Getting rid of the feeling of sadness expressed by many of the comments here. If the only human motivation factor you know is monetary, I deeply pity you.
- concordDance 3y ago> For one, there's children. For another, moderation and law enforcement is a good thing I think the idea that the government has any place controlling people's ability to freely communicate in private is at least five orders of magnitude more dangerous than allowing children to communicate freely with random adults. But I expect you're one of those people who thinks everyone should be required to wear a microphone that uploads all nearby comversations to police servers in real time to be sure nothing criminal is going on so establishing common ground will be trickier than usual.
- wslh 3y agoWhat was the relationship between StumbleUpon and Omegle. I haven't used Omegle but used StumbleUpon and was one unique place where you could discover hidden gems in the longtail.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gentoo 3y agoI think it's that both were websites that catapulted you into truly random, non-targeted interactions -- Omegle with a random person, StumbleUpon with a random site.
- simian1983 3y agoAhh the first days of Web 2.0. Reminds me of http://ytmnd.com http://ytmnd.com You’re the man now, dog!
- all2 3y agoThis place. So bizarre. I loved it so much back in the day. Especially showing friends the latest weird thing I found.
- kridsdale3 3y agoThis was the prototype of the concept that became Vine, and thus TikTok.
- rfwhyte 3y agoI miss the web where there were services actively trying to help you find new, interesting and weird things, not just the stuff that makes them the most money from ads. Feels like even the things that are supposed to be about "Discovery" are increasingly only showing you things from an ever shrinking walled garden. Despite there being exponentially more stuff and content on the web than say 20 years ago, it actually feels like a much smaller these days.
- onetokeoverthe 3y ago[dead]